TEPCO reported on May 23 that the Reactors 2 and 3 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant had a core meltdown just like the Reactor 1, based on their analysis on the reactor parameters right after the earthquake on March 11.

経済産業省原子力安全・保安院に提出する。

The company will submit the report to METI's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

In the report, TEPCO did two simulations regarding the Reactors 2 and 3: 1st, based on the assumption that the water level was what the water gauge had been showing all along; 2nd, based on the assumption that the data from the water gauge were not to be trusted, and the fuel rods were completely exposed, as in the Reactor 1. In both cases, the result showed that the nuclear fuel had melted and dropped to the bottom of the Reactor Pressure Vessel. In the 2nd case where they assumed the faulty water gauge, the result showed the entire fuel rods had melted, according to the report.

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comments:

Anonymous
said...

Areva,

I suppose it was always a meltdown....in any case, I would be more interested to know what will happen from here on, in terms of what to watch out for, what are the possibilities of another explosion. This would be the major factor in deciding whether I should leave Yokohama or not.

I agree. And the difficulty is that not enough credible information out there to figure that out. Those who should know are not saying anything. If the past is any indication, nothing will come out of the gov or TEPCO until it's at least 2 months old.

Koide and others seem to think there is still a possibility of an explosion, but most seem to think it's remote. If there's no explosion, then it's a slow and widespread contamination of soil and water.

Among all the electric companies in Japan, there's one that doesn't own any nuclear power plant, and that's Okinawa Electric.

I wonder how this impacts TEPCO's road map to ruin? Let's see, TMI (a much less serious accident) took about 5 years to just to get into the RPV the total cleanup took about 14 years. TMI didn't have breached RPV's, ruined SFP's or major environmental contamination. As for Chernobyl it has been a quarter of a century and its clean up hasn't even actually started. The affected ex-soviet states are begging the world community to pony up about 1 billion dollars just for a "proper" band-aid to cover the mess. Nobody has an actual plan to deal with the fuel and highly contaminated material inside.

Contrary to popular belief Chernobyl isn't "entombed" anymore than your average elevated parking garage. There isn't much to hold back a possible collaspe of the old hastily built sarcophagus. It has been shored up to the point of failure. The original sarcophagus was only supposed to follow a standard 5-year plan while the engineers designed a "proper" containment protocol. Unfortunately the USSR collapsed and the sarcophagus lost all prospects of future funding and proper mitigation. Many Western nations donated funds right after the collaspe but most of the money disappeared. If the world doesn't demand financial transparency the same will happen again. How often does a huge public multinational project come close to cost projections?

Here's a list of various nuclear documentaries to look for they are mostly in German, English and Dutch. They may be hard to find but I'm sure they'd be worth a watch because the Germans don't seem to be shy about the facts.

http://www.laka.org/video/2-32.html

LAKA.ORG also offers a service for loaning free(ish) copies of documentaries but they don't own the copyrights:

I guess this disclaimer is all the need in their country because they are a recognized "stichting".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_foundation#Netherlands

The material can be used for personal and non-commercial use only. Much of it is copyright material.- we have no copyright of the material, depending on what you intend to do with it, you have to take appropriate steps to fulfill all necessary obligations.- we don't sell the documentaries. The material is for free, however to cover cost we may ask you for something in return, may it be a small fee, or something else.

How to orderIf you are interested in a specific documentary listed here, please write an email to us with year, title and codenumber. We can make a copy of the material you want, either on dvd or video, and sent it to you. If you are able to sent it back, we would greatly appreciate it.

“There was a significant increase in levels of I-131 from about 8 to 80 kBq/L from 10 to 11 May, in parallel with the increase for both radiocaesium isotopes. This indicates that there is still some production of fission products. ”

I'm a little surprised that this last admission is directly contrary to statements made about cold shutdown at the outset. The change of position on the status of the reactors follows on the heels of the resignation of the top official.

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

I am Japanese, and I not only read Japanese news sources for information on earthquake and the Fukushima Nuke Plant but also watch press conferences via the Internet when I can and summarize my findings, adding my observations.

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Well, this was, until March 11, 2011. Now it is taken over by the events in Japan, first earthquake and tsunami but quickly by the nuke reactor accident. It continues to be a one-person (me) blog, and I haven't even managed to update the sidebars after 5 months... Thanks for coming, spread the word.------------------This is an aggregator site of blogs coming out of SKF (double-short financials ETF) message board at Yahoo.

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